30% in 52 days did not suffice: First comment from İnce

The CHP’s expectations were dashed in the 24 June presidential and parliamentary elections. The CHP’s presidential candidate Muharrem İnce attained a vote considerably higher than that of the CHP. İnce took 30% of the vote and managed to secure the highest vote for a social democratic candidate for many years. The election process in Turkey was triggered with MHP General Chair Devlet Bahçeli proposing an early election and President Tayyip Erdoğan calling a snap election on 18 April. The CHP’s presidential candidate waged a good campaign taking the “No” block behind him as well as the CHP base. However, according to the results provided by the Anadolu Agency (AA) which the opposition said were manipulative, this performance did not suffice. According to the unofficial results, İnce, whose vote surpassed that of the CHP by a considerable margin, managed to get votes from conservative and ultranationalistic circles. Conversely, the CHP lost a large share of its vote in parliament to the HDP and Good Party. With the Felicity Party failing in its plan to take votes from the AKP, the opposition was unable to secure the 301-seat majority in parliament it was targeting. With the MHP maintaining its 1 November share of the vote, it succeeded in increasing the number of its seats. 

Erosion of the CHP vote

The CHP, which took 25.32% of the vote in the 1 November 2015 General Elections, saw its vote fall by about three per cent in the 24 June General Election. The CHP vote fell in Istanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Bursa, Adana and Antalya as opposed to 1 November. With HDP voters supporting the HDP for parliament and İnce for president, CHP voters voted tactically for the HDP given the possibility that it would fall short of the threshold.

Thanks to the electorate from Kılıçdaroğlu

CHP General Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu came to headquarters as the ballot boxes were first being opened. Kılıçdaroğlu, making a brief statement to members of the press, said, “We owe you a great deal. Above all, our reporter friends displayed great sacrifice in getting our voice and words across to the wide masses.” Kılıçdaroğlu drew no distinction as he expressed his gratitude to citizens who went to the polls and voted and he called on party members to remain beside the ballot boxes until the results were finalised.

“We will monitor the votes”

As the results began to be announced, Bülent Tezcan, Tuncay Özkan, Muharrem Erkek and Onursal Adıgüzel appeared before the press and voiced their reaction to the AA’s results. Tezcan, saying that Erdoğan’s vote had not exceeded 48%, indicated that 9,636 ballot boxes had been opened and Erdoğan’s vote was 46% and İnce’s 40%. Tezcan, noting that the AA was providing disinformation, said, “It put Erdoğan’s vote at 70.72%. It is clear from this that the AA will call it quits at 51%. They are playing with the nation’s perception, and will even call it quits at 50.5%. We are monitoring things step by step. They have been nabbed; we’ll see how they’ve been nabbed.” With the unofficial results having been announced, Tezcan made another appearance in front of the press. Saying, “Let nobody become bride and groom early. The presidential election had gone to a second round,” Teczan noted that according to Supreme Election Board data 84,116 ballot boxes had been opened and more than half the ballot boxes were still unopened, and commented: “There are nearly 40 million votes awaiting. Erdoğan’s share of the vote appears to be 51.77%. Let nobody play the fife and drum early. We will monitor these votes step by step. We will enter these votes into the system until the morning. Let nobody declare themself president with 51% of the vote in a situation in which there remain nearly 110,000 unopened ballot boxes.”